Magi Ranger

by Tenstar12

Betrayed by the world he had given his all to save, Harry finds himself cast into the void. With some help Harry ends up in another dimension, but in classic Harry Potter fashion gets himself into trouble almost immediately. Can he make his way in this strange world he finds himself in where giant monster attacks are a daily occurrence and hardly anything is familiar? AU Harry, MOD

20. Chapter 20

Magi Ranger

By: Tenstar12

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Power Rangers.

Chapter 20, The Third Obligatory Expositionary Chapter, Now with Backstory!

Harry sat in silence for a few minutes, gathering his thoughts while the others settled themselves in for a long story. Trini and Kimberly ended up sitting closest to him, settling side-by-side on the steps that lead out of the circle of consoles and toward the Viewing Globe. Zack just sprawled on the floor a short distance behind them while Billy perched himself on the flat top of one of the computer consoles. Jason leaned up against another computer, his arms still crossed and his stern look directed at Harry. Tommy, after hesitating for a moment, sat down near Zack before calmly waiting for Harry to start. Alpha and Zordon merely remained as they were, though Harry supposed being a robot and a floating head made getting comfortable a non-issue.

Finally, Harry took a deep breath and started his tale. "I suppose the best place to start is at the very beginning. In my world, some fifty or so years before I was born, there was a boy named Tom Marvolo Riddle. This boy was an orphan with a less than perfect childhood and a tendency toward acts of cruelty who was later told he was a wizard and taken to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"Aren't witchcraft and wizardry the same thing?" Kimberly asked, confusion on her face.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Probably, but it's been the name of the school for countless generations, ever since it was founded. The school itself was pretty much one of the most revered facilities and organizations in all of Magical Britain. As such nobody thought anything weird about the name, or if they did they didn't voice it, Hogwarts was just Hogwarts." Harry paused to let out a rueful chuckle. "The Wizarding world is weird. There will be several things that don't make much sense from a practicality standpoint. You eventually learn to ignore it."

Seeing Kimberly was satisfied, if not entirely convinced of his point, Harry continued. "Tom went through his seven years at Hogwarts, graduated as Head Boy, that is to say he was one of the top students in his year and was given a position of authority as a result, and then vanished. Some years later he returned to the public eye calling himself Lord Voldemort and led a campaign of terror that nearly brought the entire Wizarding world to its knees."

Harry met the eyes of his fellow Rangers (And how odd was it to call them that!), seeing that he had caught their attention, he took another breath. "This was the First Blood War. Voldemort and his followers, the Death Eaters, fought for their idea of pure blood idealism. In their world view, if you weren't a pureblooded wizard, meaning you had all magical ancestors going back a certain number of generations, then you were inferior in every way. It was worse still if you were a magical born to non-magical parents, we called them Muggleborns. Those with non-magical parentage were treated as less than trash and were typically killed on the spot, along with their families for daring to have anything to do with magic."

"Damn…" Zack breathed, his eyes wide in horror. "That's… That's terrible…"

The others nodded or gave out grunts of confirmation before Harry managed to continue. "This all continued until October 31, 1981. On that night, Voldemort went to the town of Godric's Hollow and to the home of Lilly and James Potter. My parents. On that night, Voldemort broke through the magical protections on our home, protections that were supposed to be impregnable, killed both of my parents in cold blood and tried to do the same to me. Needless to say, he failed."

Kimberly and Trini both had tears in their eyes and Zack's looked suspiciously close as Harry spoke. "How old were you?" Trini asked, choking up slightly as she did.

Harry gave her a weak smile. "I had turned one three months before."

Everyone froze for a moment. Harry wasn't surprised that it was Billy who did the math and put everything together first. "Wait, that would suggest that you were born in late July or early August of 1980, correct?"

Harry nodded. "Yep. July 31, 1980 at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries in London."

Zack nearly jumped to his feet as he near-shouted in astonishment. "But it's only 1993 now… Are you saying that you're only thirteen years old?!" Jason stood straight up, looking at Harry with eyes that were equally horrified and confused.

Harry just laughed. "Guys, cool it. I'm nineteen. When I traveled to this dimension I also traveled back in time. When I left my own dimension it was September of 1999. I don't know the actual day for sure on account of being arrested on trumped up charges and all that. And I'll get to that later on." The last was directed at Tommy, who looked ready to interject when Harry mentioned being arrested.

"So the discrepancies in the temporal flow between our dimension and your own have resulted in you being 19, but also 13?" Billy asked, looking more confused than any of the others. Harry could sympathize, time travel did weird things to your head if you weren't careful.

"No, Billy, I'm just 19. Just because my birth date is only 13 years ago here, doesn't mean my actual age is any different. If you ask Zordon, when they set up my identity here, he had Alpha set up my birth year here to reflect my actual age instead of my real birthdate."

"Harry speaks the truth, Rangers." Zordon interjected. Harry was just thankful that someone was stepping in so the entire storytelling didn't get hung up on the time travel issue. He would have to carefully gloss over the time traveling in his third year to avoid a similar problem. "Harry's chronological age, as defined by our sensors in the Command Center, is 19. His actual birth date in his original dimension means little at this point."

Seeing that the others were satisfied and Billy had calmed slightly, Harry continued his story. "So when Voldemort tried to kill me on that night, he cast a very powerful curse known as the Avada Kedavra, or Killing Curse. It does much what the name suggests: if you're hit with it, you die. Except I didn't. I've heard theories and suggestions for years over what happened that night, but ultimately all I've been able to figure out is that my mum did something that night that protected me from the spell and continued to offer a kind of protection for many years afterward.

"In any case, Voldemort's spell rebounded off of me, leaving me with this scar," Harry idly lifted his bangs up to reveal the now faded lightning bolt scar on his forehead before continuing. "The spell then hit him and destroyed his body. He was left in a sort of spirit form, more like a wraith than anything else, and fled."

Tommy tilted his head in confusion. "Wait, if the spell is supposed to kill instantly and it bounced off of you then why didn't it kill this Voldemonkey guy?"

Harry let out a snort of laughter before speaking. "Voldemort had taken his own steps to ensure his immortality. He once bragged in my presence that he had gone further along the road to immortality than any before him. I'll explain exactly how he did it later on, but I'm fairly sure that that's why he wasn't killed that night. Would have done everyone a lot of good if he had been though, that's for sure…"

After a few moments to collect himself again, Harry let out a sigh. "Ok, look. This next part is not exactly easy for me to talk about. I didn't really have a… happy childhood. I've had a lot of time to work past my issues with it, but it's not something that's fun to speak of. That being said, please hold any questions as best you can, alright?" Pausing once again to get nods from everyone, though they all had looks of concern on their faces now, even Jason, Harry closed his eyes and began.

"I was taken from my parents' house that night by a man named Rubeus Hagrid. He was probably one of the kindest people I have ever known. A real gentle soul, but certainly not the brightest. He was a simple man, good natured, but he couldn't keep a secret to save his life. In any case, he was there on the orders of the Headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore, who I briefly mentioned earlier. His orders were to take me from the ruins of my home in Godric's Hollow and bring me to the house of my maternal aunt, Petunia Dursley. Dumbledore, Hagrid, and Minerva McGonagall, another professor from Hogwarts, left me on the doorstep that night and left to join the rest of the celebrating Wizarding world, jubilant over the defeat of He Who Must Not Be Named by the suddenly famous Harry James Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived."

Kimberly looked confused now. "I thought you beat that flight from death guy?" Harry gave her a dry look and she winced slightly before apologizing. "Sorry, but still. Who is this He Who Must Not Be Named?"

"Forget that," Zack piped up. "Who's the flight from death guy you're talking about?"

"Flight from death is the French translation of Voldemort," Trini answered promptly, still facing Harry.

Harry nodded, taking the new direction with pleasure if only to delay the difficult retelling a bit longer. "And He Who Must Not Be Named was a title of sorts that the Wizarding public gave to Voldemort. Along with You-Know-Who and, in one rather amusing instance, Lord Thingy, the general population went out of their way to avoid saying his self-given name, so great was the fear he inspired. As far as the translation goes, I'm fairly certain it was intentional on his part too. I didn't know what his name meant until now, but I was once told that he anagrammed his given name, Tom Marvolo Riddle, into 'I am Lord Voldemort.' It was a name he had started using even before leaving Hogwarts amongst those closest to him who later became among the first of his Death Eater followers."

"If he chose such a name for himself it would stand to reason that death was a great source of fear for him." Billy said, one hand resting on his chin as he did so.

Harry nodded again. "With the lengths he took to try and ensure his avoiding death, and based on what I've been told about him, you're probably right, Billy. There are some dark depths that wizards can sink to in their studies of magic, and Tom went deeper than many others would have even dreamt of in his pursuit of immortality…"

There was silence in the command center as everyone digested these ominous words. The Rangers looked somewhat unsettled by what little of his story Harry had already told, but then hearing that someone they knew had been orphaned at such a young age and had a thus far ambiguously terrible childhood would throw anyone off.

Finally, after a few minutes and seeing no other option, Harry continued his story once more. "Living with the Dursleys was a less than ideal situation to say the least. They made it very clear from as far back as I can remember that I was neither wanted nor needed in their household. I was treated as little better than a servant or slave in my time there, always being given all the chores that needed to be done and being punished for the slightest wrong, no matter how much of a perceived wrong it was."

Temporarily lost in his memories, Harry trailed off for a moment, leaving Jason an opening to speak, his brow furrowing as he did so. "So you had a bunch of chores and a strict upbringing? I really don't see how that can be considered a rough childhood… Maybe not super happy, but not necessarily hard…"

Harry shot Jason a hard look, meeting his eyes steadily as he spoke. "From a young age, really as soon as I was tall enough to see over the countertop while standing on a stool, I was forced to cook all the meals in the house. If I got anything wrong, if the food was even the slightest bit overdone or didn't taste quite right, I got punished by being locked in the cupboard under the stairs without any food for myself. I would get sent out to mow the lawn from age 8. They would have me do it later in the evening when it was too dark for the neighbors to make anything out and I had to use an old manual push mower since a gas powered one would wake up everyone. If I missed any spots, I would be locked in the cupboard for the entirety of the next day, only being let out to try and fix my 'mistakes' that evening."

Jason's eyes grew wider and wider as Harry continued, describing the various horrors and cruel treatment that he received from his blood relatives. Trini and Kimberly had tears in their eyes again and Billy, Tommy, and Zack were beginning to look ill. Zordon and Alpha remained impassive as ever, though a hint of concern could be seen in Zordon's eyes if one knew where to look.

Finally, Trini cleared her throat lightly and spoke with more than a bit of hesitation. "They… they didn't… hit you, did they?"

Harry smiled self-depreciatingly. "Only once. Uncle Vernon got carried away one morning and cuffed me upside the head when I didn't cook enough for breakfast before sending my cousin and me off to school. He managed to hit my eye well enough that by the time I got to the school, there was a rather easily visible bruise forming. Naturally, there was an investigation, but nothing ever came of it. To this day I don't know how much of it was due to Vernon paying bribes and how much of it was just laziness on the part of the investigators, but the only thing that came out of that was a weekend of no meals locked in the cupboard."

"You keep mentioning this cupboard…" Tommy asked, hesitantly, though all the Rangers looked rather uneasy now. "Was it like some kind of time-out room or something? Did your cousin get sent there too?"

This time Harry full out laughed. "Precious Diddy-dums get sent to the cupboard under the stairs? That's a joke if I ever heard one. No, Tommy, my cousin was the most spoiled fat lump you've ever seen. He makes Bulk look intelligent and well-mannered by comparison. Besides, Dudley had his own room to get sent to if he ever did anything worthy of punishment, not that that happened often. Most of his bad behavior was blamed on me after all."

"His own room…" Jason whispered, horrified all over again. "You slept in the cupboard under the stairs? They were sending you to your room and locking you in there… in the cupboard under the stairs!?"

Nodding at Jason, Harry smirked slightly. "Does my childhood qualify as being 'rough' now, Jason?"

Blushing slightly and with an apologetic look on his face, Jason mumbled a quick "sorry" before Harry started talking once more.

"Anyway, I survived the Dursleys for ten years before things started changing. Shortly after my 11th birthday, I got a letter inviting me to Hogwarts, and boy was Uncle Vernon less than thrilled…"

And so Harry told them of his life. He spoke of the reactions of his Aunt and Uncle to the invasion of the Magical World into their "normal" life. Of being given Dudley's second bedroom in an attempt to look good in the eyes of any potential magical watchers. He spoke of the mad dash across the countryside to try and escape the never ending supply of letters. He spoke of meeting Hagrid once again and his introduction to the Wizarding World and Diagon Alley. He spoke of Gringotts, of receiving Hedwig from Hagrid, of Platform 9 ¾, of meeting Ron and Hermione for the first time on the Hogwarts Express and of Draco Malfoy and his bookends. He told the Rangers and Zordon of his first sight of Hogwarts and his sorting and on through his first year, glossing over details of his daily life and just hitting on the clues they found that lead Harry to confronting Voldemort once again from the back of his Defense Professor's head.

"So wait," Zack interrupted his telling of the events in the third floor corridor. "This guy had a head growing out of the back of his head?"

Harry nodded. "Essentially. Professor Quirrell was being possessed by the spirit of Voldemort in an attempt to steal the Sorcerer's Stone that was hidden in the school. He wanted the stone so he could try and make himself a new body and return to attempting to conquer Magical Britain."

"So what happened to him?" Billy asked.

Harry smirked grimly. "I grabbed his face and he disintegrated."

He was met with blank looks and silence. Harry couldn't help but laugh.

"As it was explained to me, the protection my mother used on the night of her murder that still lingered in my blood was painful to Voldemort and any who housed his spirit. Quirrell's body was already falling apart just because he was housing a powerful spirit like he was, and the positive magic just overwhelmed him and his body gave out."

"So you killed him?" Jason asked, somehow not surprising Harry.

The mage nodded firmly. "He was the first servant of Voldemort I was forced to kill in my life, and unfortunately not the last…"

"Well hey, man, it's not like you had a choice," Zack commented, looking uneasily between Jason and Harry. "The guy was trying to kill you at the time, right? Self-defense."

Harry gave another weak smile. "You try explaining that to a traumatized eleven year old and let me know how it works out for you."

Shaking of his unease after a few moments, Harry jumped back into his story. He told the Rangers of Dobby the House Elf stealing his mail and ruining Vernon's business dinner. Of the Weasley rescue and life at the Burrow before they returned to Hogwarts. He spoke of the strange happenings in his second year: the voice only he could hear and the apparent return of the Heir of Slytherin. He told them how most of the school turned on him, believing that he had something to do with the attacks once it became known that he spoke Parseltongue. At least they did until Hermione was found petrified near the end of the school year. He told them of solving the mystery of the Chamber of Secrets and he and Ron taking their useless Defense Professor with them to try and confront the beast within.

"And you got bitten by this huge-ass snake?" Zack once more interjected, his eyes only growing wider when Harry nodded and pulled up his sleeve to show the circular scar on his upper arm.

"Yep, killed it though." Harry smiled, though it faltered when Trini and Kimberly both glared at him. Apparently they didn't find his, admittedly weak, joke very funny.

"So this time, it wasn't really the same Voldemort, was it?" Trini asked thoughtfully a moment later. "You said it was a memory preserved in a diary?"

Harry nodded and decided to once more get into some of the darker details. "Yeah. The diary was what is known as a Horcrux. It is a dark artifact wherein a dark wizard or witch seals a portion of their soul through means of a ritual that requires an act of absolute evil to perform. In Voldemort's case, he murdered someone in cold blood, thereby damaging his soul enough that a portion could be torn off to store in the Horcrux. He made the diary before he even left Hogwarts, though I didn't learn any of this for a few more years."

"To think that such evil exists even in other dimensions is truly a saddening thing." Zordon spoke calmly, his face reflecting his sorrow. "You are very brave for having faced such an evil, Harry."

"Thanks, Zordon, but that was hardly the end of it. We learned later, much later at that, that he actually made seven of the things, even if one was rather unintentional." Harry shook his head briefly. "But I'm getting ahead of myself, and the most interesting stuff is yet to come."

Harry soldiered on through the events of the summer of 1993. He spoke of his 'Aunt' Marge and her bulldogs and of blowing her up. He then quickly corrected himself by saying he inflated her when Jason looked ready to bust a vein at his casual mention of apparently killing an innocent, if Marge could ever be considered as such.

He told them of his pleasant summer spent in Diagon Alley and of learning about Sirius Black. He told them of the Dementors and idly reflected on the sense of tension and anticipation he had felt at this same time in his home dimension, wondering at this escaped convict that was once a friend of his parents and whether or not he would show up at Hogwarts. Moving on, Harry told the Rangers of Black's break in on Halloween, sparking a comment from Kimberly that he didn't seem to have a good history with the holiday. He told them of the events around Buckbeak's trial and Hermione's mysterious vanishing and reappearing acts throughout the year. And then he told them of the confrontation with the man allegedly responsible for his parents' murder.

"So Hermione and I busted into the upstairs bedroom in the Shrieking Shack to find Ron on the bed holding his broken leg and screaming about someone being an Animagus."

"What's an Animagus?" Billy asked immediately, as he had frequently when Harry used some new terminology.

Harry smiled at him slightly, unfortunately used to being interrupted for clarification at this point. "An Animagus is a witch or wizard who has gained the ability to take on the form and traits of an animal that represents their innermost self. Sirius black was one. Professor McGonagall was one. My father was even one."

"Prodigious!" Billy sounded awed as he stared. "Can you do it?"

Harry blushed lightly. "Ah… no, no I can't. I looked into the process once during the war, but it took more time than I had to spare just then. And it's not really a safe thing to try without someone to help reverse any accidents."

"Like what kind of accidents?" Zack asked, his head tilted to the side.

Harry snorted. "Like if I was a bird Animagus I could end up turning my arms into wings. I wouldn't be able to use my wand to turn myself back, so I would need another trained magical to reverse the Transfiguration."

Zack's eyes widened when he realized the problem. "Yeah, I doubt Rita would be willing to help you out there."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Likely not. Anyway, Hermione figured out that Black had to be the big dog that took Ron earlier and we spun around just as he slammed the door behind us. I don't remember all the specifics of the conversation, but basically Sirius was ranting and raving about actually committing the crime he had been imprisoned for. We couldn't figure out what he was talking about before Professor Lupin burst into the room, saw Hermione and I with our wands trained on the escaped convict, and then disarmed us immediately."

The Rangers went wide-eyed as Harry continued his story. "Yeah, we were rather surprised too, though no less than when Professor Snape showed up from under my Invisibility Cloak a bit later and tried to take us all back to the school as his prisoners. That man had some problems, let me tell you. Anyway, as it turns out, Sirius was my Godfather, and he had only broken out of Azkaban Prison after seeing a picture in the Daily Prophet newspaper by accident. The picture showed the Weasley family from when they won a cash award the previous summer. In the picture was Ron's pet rat, Scabbers."

"Ew! He had a pet rat!?" Kimberly nearly shrieked. "Don't they, like, pee on everything?"

Harry winced. "They do, but this one wasn't exactly an ordinary rat…"

"That hardly makes it better, man." Tommy said with an uneasy chuckle. "A rat is a rat…"

"Oh, just wait," Harry said. "It gets even more convoluted. So Sirius recognized Scabbers because he had grown up at Hogwarts seeing that rat nearly every day. He was convinced that it was his old friend, the believed to be deceased Peter Pettigrew that Sirius had been sent to prison without trial for killing. Just as Sirius was an Animagus that turned into a big black dog, Pettigrew was a rat Animagus."

"So that rat was really this Peter Pettigrew guy?" Jason asked, relaxing slightly when Harry nodded. "Why was Black after him?"

Taking a fortifying breath, Harry soldiered on. "You recall that I mentioned that my parents went into hiding under some rather powerful spells, yes? Well the strongest of those spells, the one that was supposed to be unbeatable, is called the Fidelius charm. This spell takes the knowledge of a location and hides it in the soul of another, a secret keeper. As long as the secret keeper doesn't speak the key phrase to reveal the location, an outside viewer could look right at it without ever even knowing it was there. The only true caveat to the spell, or so we believed, was that the secret keeper could not stay at the location full time themselves at the risk of destabilizing the spell, defeating the purpose of it in the first place. Otherwise one of my parents could have been the secret keeper and all of the trouble that followed could have been avoided.

"It was commonly known that my father and Sirius Black were the best of friends. It was also commonly known that Sirius was the secret keeper for my parents. So when the Fidelius was broken and my parents killed, Sirius was arrested and imprisoned as Voldemort's right hand man for the betrayal that led to their deaths. The issue there was that Sirius was not and had never been a Death Eater, nor was he the secret keeper in truth. It was all a ruse, a prank if you will as my father and Sirius were both pranksters at Hogwarts, in order to throw Voldemort off the trail of the real secret keeper: Peter Pettigrew."

"So the only way that Voldiwatsis could have found your parents is if Pettigrew gave them up?" Zack's voice had lost most all of its usual joviality.

Harry nodded solemnly. "That's what Sirius had assumed. He hadn't seen trace of Peter since well before the night my parents were murdered. He was actually arrested coming out of Peter's safe house and the arresting Aurors, the magical police if you will, couldn't find any sign of him in there. It was determined that Sirius must have killed him and vanished the body. That was another charge tacked onto Sirius's docket and the crime he had spoken of committing when we first confronted him.

"So Ron handed his rat, which had been struggling mightily the entire time I might add, over to Professor Lupin. The Professor had said he was just going to cast a spell to try and prove or disprove Sirius's words. Scabbers got free after a moment, but was hit with a reversal spell just before he could escape. Hermione, Ron, and I were quite surprised, let me tell you, but we were all surprised when the fat man that had just been Ron's pet rat suddenly burst into tears and started thanking Remus profusely and apologizing to Sirius and me almost at the same time."

"So they were ready to kill him, and he started thanking them?" Kimberly asked. "That doesn't quite sound right…"

Harry sighed. "You remember when I said it gets more convoluted, well just wait until you hear this. Apparently Peter had been captured by Voldemort and forced under some very powerful mind control magics to lead him to my parents' home. The magic of the Fidelius prevented him from being able to force Peter to tell him the secret, but he was able to work around this by having Peter physically lead him there while Voldemort himself wore a blindfold. Once they were past the ward boundaries, Voldemort removed the blindfold, forced him to change into his Animagus form, and cast several powerful compulsion charms on him that prevented him from changing back by himself and from doing anything overt to inform anyone of who and what he really was. Because of all this, Peter was forced to seek shelter with a known light family, the Weasleys, in the hopes that someone would be able to save him one day if they noticed anything odd. From what he said, he was hoping that sooner or later his abnormally long life span would help tip someone off."

"So he was innocent?" Trini asked, her mouth open slightly in horror at the thought.

Harry gave another nod. "He was used by Voldemort just as so many others had been. Sirius thought that Peter had been a willing spy, working for Voldemort all along. When he saw the picture of him with the Weasley family attached to an article that mentioned that Ron and I were friends, he assumed the worst and broke out of prison to try and save my life. Sirius was visibly confused by Peter's revelation and was completely unprepared to believe him until Peter made a magical vow on his life and magic as to the truth of his statement. If he had been lying about any of it, Peter would have dropped dead immediately as his own magic punished him for his falsehood."

"A vow like the one you made to Zordon?" Jason interjected. "Does that mean you could die if you break yours?"

Harry shook his head, looking slightly exasperated. "As I explained earlier, Jason, if I somehow willingly break my oath to Zordon I will only lose my magic as I only swore on my magic. Magical vows are not something to be taken lightly and so I only swore on what I had to in order to satisfy Zordon as to my sincerity and, as Zack put it, to remove what would make me a threat if I did break it. Peter's vow was on his very life, a good deal more serious in the grand scheme of things."

Harry paused a few more moments to see if anyone else had a comment before he continued. "Now ideally, things would have worked out well after that. Sirius and Peter could have turned themselves in at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and gotten everything straightened out and I could have gone to live with my godfather. Unfortunately, Professor Lupin was a werewolf and there was a full moon that night."

"Wait," Zack said, looking shocked and a bit frightened. "A werewolf? Like a real turn on the full moon werewolf?"

"Yep," Harry responded, looking amused at the disbelief on the Ranger's face. "He was bitten as a child by a particularly ruthless were named Fenrir Greyback. Something about Lupin's father making him mad or something, I don't really remember. But anyway, Professor Lupin hadn't yet taken the potion that would have kept him from going feral when he transformed, instead having come after us to the Shrieking Shack, and so he went on a rampage that nearly caused the lot of us to get kissed by the Dementors on the grounds. I won't go into too much detail since it involves more time travel, but Hermione and I managed to ensure both that Buckbeak escaped his unfair execution and that Sirius and Peter managed to escape with him. Apparently the Minister for Magic came to the conclusion, no doubt influence by Snape as he had taken credit for capturing the 'dangerous criminal' Sirius Black, that Peter was an imposter and an accomplice and was therefore equally guilty of any crimes committed by black. The man always was gullible and readily followed anyone who pointed him in the direction of the greatest increase in his public approval ratings. He arranged for Sirius and Peter to have the Dementor's kiss administered as soon as possible to avoid any more bad press. In the aftermath, Professor Lupin was forced to quit as Snape had let it slip that he was a werewolf out of bitterness. Lupin took the time to finally tell me a bit about my parents, as he had known them in school, and a bit more about the group he had formed with my father. They called themselves the Marauders: Moony, Lupin; Wormtail, Pettigrew; Padfoot, Sirius; and Prongs, my father. They were so named because of the Professor's disease and the others' Animagus forms. My dad was a stag and was named after what I've been told was a rather impressive set of antlers.

"After all that was over, it was only a few short weeks before I was back at the Dursleys once again…" Harry continued on to speak of the rising trouble in the Wizarding world and his own life. From his dark dreams of Voldemort regaining power aided by a shadowed figure to his entrance into the Triwizard Tournament. He explained about the First Task and his game of aerial tag with a dragon and the Yule Ball, glossing over his trouble with finding a date as best he could, though Zack took a particular pleasure in grilling him over it. He told them of the Second Task under the Black Lake and the Third task in the Maze that lead to a graveyard in Little Hangleton where his fellow Triwizard competitor, Cedric Diggory, had been killed and Voldemort was resurrected with the help of Barty Crouch Junior and Lucius Malfoy. There had been some rather amusing looks when he detailed the ritual used to revive the Dark Lord, particularly when he reached the part where Barty cut off his own hand.

Harry's fifth year was largely uneventful after some initial trouble with Dementors and underage magic trials. With Voldemort keeping himself under the radar after his resurrection, everyone was convinced that Harry was delusional and he was getting flack for it. At the same time, the ministry had appointed a Senior Auror to teach the defense class in an ill-fated attempt at controlling the situation at the school better. The problem there was that Kingsley Shacklebolt was both firmly on Dumbledore's side and one of the best defense teachers that Hogwarts had ever hosted. Much of what Harry learned in that class would go on to serve him well both during his future training and when he fully joined the war against Voldemort.

The end of the year, however, brought yet more heartache to Harry's life.

"I woke from the vision with a mad plan. I was prepared to charge to London myself to try and save Sirius from Voldemort, but Hermione managed to convince me to do at least a little bit of checking first. Unfortunately for me, what checking we did only made me more determined to go. So, along with Hermione, Ron, Neville, Ginny, and Luna, I flew to London on some thestrals, a kind of magical horse like creature, and traveled through the Ministry of Magic and down to the Hall of Prophecy. Once we got there, it became all too apparent that it was a trap. Especially once the Death Eaters stepped out of hiding and tried to order me to hand over one specific Prophecy Orb. Apparently they couldn't take it themselves or risk running afoul of the magical protections."

Harry found himself choked up at this point. Even after so many years, the battle that followed and its ultimate end were still difficult for him to speak of. Finally, Trini leaned forward and placed a comforting hand on his knee. Looking up into her eyes, Harry couldn't help but return the reassuring smile she wore, if only slightly. After a few more moments, Harry was able to gather himself enough to continue, telling the Rangers about the ill-fated battle in the Department of Mysteries. How each of his friends was injured, nearly killed in a few cases, all because they decided to follow him on a fool's errand. How the Order had arrived to help at the last minute and how Sirius had been killed during the fight, the sole casualty on either side.

Haltingly, he spoke of his anger as he chased after Sirius's murderer, Bellatrix LeStrange, and how he tried to finish her in his rage. He spoke of Voldemort's arrival and the awe he felt at watching the duel between the Dark Lord and Dumbledore. He spoke of Dumbledore's reveal of the prophecy that the Death Eaters had been after and what it meant for Harry and the Wizarding World in general.

"Either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives." Harry intoned solemnly. "Those words defined my life, for I never really got to live my life until after the war was over…" He snorted slightly before letting out a few self-depreciating chuckles. "Hell, even after it was over, I only really got a month or so to try and get myself together before everything fell apart again…"

The Rangers exchanged looks, worry and confusion in their eyes as they did so until Harry pulled himself together again. He told them of his sixth year at Hogwarts and how Dumbledore finally decided to tell him of his theory as to how Voldemort had survived. He told them of Dumbledore's lessons on the history of Tom Riddle and how he believed it would help lead them to these Horcruxes. He spoke of how he had insisted that they burn through the memories Dumbledore had gathered in a single week before all but demanding that Dumbledore start teaching him something useful.

"I pointed out that if he expected me to be able to beat Voldemort, I could hardly beat his fifty plus years of magical experience with a typical Hogwarts Education. It took some doing, but Dumbledore finally agreed to start with some more advanced tuition. He brought in Moody, making extra sure it was the real one this time, along with Shacklebolt when he was available, and a few other Order members on rotation and they trained me in combat magics as best they could along with my wandless magic skills and whatever tactical knowledge I could gain. I spent the rest of my sixth year training under them while Voldemort, now ousted to the public, restarted his campaign to take over Magical Britain.

"The lessons continued, though in a lesser form, when I went back to the Dursleys before my seventh year. On my 17th birthday, the protections on the house failed and the Order managed to ambush and capture over a dozen Death Eaters that tried to capitalize on it. Unfortunately for them, the Dursleys had left more than a month before and I had been moved to a safe house shortly afterwards. The only way that it could have gone better for us is if the Death Eaters hadn't been broken out of the Ministry's new prison less than a week later when Voldemort raided the facility."

Harry shook his head once more before looking at each of the Rangers sadly. "There was so much of that war that could have been prevented but for the stupidity and lack of action on the part of the Ministry of Magic. Amelia Bones, the head of the DMLE, was a good woman, probably one of the best we could have had in that position, but even before she was killed she was handicapped by the Minister and his Senior Undersecretary, a vile woman named Delores Umbridge. The same woman, by the way, who was most directly responsible for my arrest, imprisonment, and execution order after the war was over."

The silence that followed lasted only a moment before Harry once more gathered himself and pushed on through his tale. He spoke of his seventh year at Hogwarts and how he had to be convinced by his friends and the Order members to actually attend. Harry had been convinced that his time would be better spent fully preparing himself for the fight to come, but ultimately he went to the school. His training had continued alongside his schoolwork and regular meetings with Dumbledore. These meetings largely consisted of discussions with the elderly headmaster, but as the year progressed they became more and more about dueling practice. The headmaster may have looked old, but he was still more than a match for the much more energetic and mobile Harry. The sheer number of spells that Harry's massive magical reserves allowed him to put out were balanced by Dumbledore's experience and spell knowledge, not to mention boosted by the power of the Elder Wand.

"You mean the same Elder Wand that Rita has right now?" Zack asked.

Harry nodded. "One and the same. As you all know, with the possible exception of Tommy, it is an artifact of tremendous power that amplifies the power of spells cast through it several times over. Dumbledore had won it from an old friend of his turned Dark Lord that he defeated in his younger days. He kept it safe throughout his life and its allegiance stayed with him until the day I managed to disarm him in a duel a few months after I graduated from Hogwarts. Damn near knocked him arse over teakettle at the same time too." Harry chuckled slightly, remembering the shocked yet proud look on his old Headmaster's face when Harry had bested him. They had had their differences throughout the time they had known each other, the problems with Dumbledore's ideology the least of them, but he still had a certain feeling of respect and camaraderie for the man.

Once more bringing himself back to point, Harry continued. "So the Horcrux hunt had gone rather well. The diary I destroyed back in my second year turned out to be the first one Tom made, as I mentioned earlier. While Dumbledore was studying it, one of the castle house elves made a passing comment on how it felt similar to the 'bad magic in the Come and Go Room.' This lead Dumbledore to finding another of the Horcruxes within Hogwarts itself. Sometime during my sixth year, Dumbledore also took a few members of the Order with him to follow a lead to another one, but it turned out to be a fake. We later discovered the real Horcrux, a locket, in the house I inherited from my Godfather. Apparently, Sirius's brother, Regulus, had been a Death Eater, but had a change of heart and stole the locket Horcrux before he was killed. The final free Horcrux was hidden in Gringotts bank and the Order was able to negotiate with the Goblins that ran it to destroy it in exchange for a sizable amount of money. The Goblins wanted nothing to do with the war directly, but they understood just what it would mean should Voldemort really win. Even still, they weren't willing to do anything for free, especially when it was asked by a wizard."

Harry paused again to collect his thoughts before continuing. "A few months after I disarmed Dumbledore, he asked me, along with Hermione and Ron who had also been receiving training with the Order, to accompany him on a mission to find another Horcrux. He believed this one to be in a shack that once belonged to Tom's maternal line. Since Parseltongue was a strong trait in that line, he thought that my ability to speak it would help out and wanted Ron and Hermione there to back me up if needed. We arrived at the shack and I managed to talk our way past an animated snake skeleton on the doorway. Dumbledore found the Horcrux, a ring, and we barely acted in time to stop him from putting it on. As it turned out, the stone on the ring was actually the Resurrection Stone, like the wand and my cloak. Dumbledore had been searching for it for most of his life and his own desire coupled with compulsions on the ring had handily overwhelmed him."

"So does that mean that you had all those Deathly Hallows at once then?" Billy asked suddenly. "Since you already had the cloak and your headmaster had the wand, once you acquired the stone that would mean you had the full set."

Harry blinked for a moment before smiling slightly. "You know, I never really thought about it, but I suppose we did. Huh… go figure…" His expression quickly fell after a moment though. "In any case, it didn't last long. When we went to leave, Voldemort was outside waiting for us. He commended us on tracking down one of his Horcruxes, but told us that we wouldn't be leaving there alive so it made little difference." Harry swallowed again, fighting back his tears as he remembered the events that followed. "Dumbledore passed me the ring and advised me to look into the Tale of the Three Brothers, a popular children's story, before he faced off against Tom. He held him off long enough for us to get away, and it cost him his life."

Kimberly and Trini had tears streaming down their cheeks now at the sadness in Harry's voice while the boys looked decidedly uncomfortable. Harry, having been through it personally, was more readily able to hide the emotions, but it was still clear enough that he was feeling the pain of his mentor's loss all over again.

Finally, Harry recovered enough to speak again. "The months that followed were hard. Not only was the Order reeling from Dumbledore's death, but Voldemort apparently took it as a sign that the war was all but won. We were fairly certain that he had heard Dumbledore's last words to me and figured out just what wand he held, a thought that was confirmed during later confrontations with him when he bragged about it, and only took greater encouragement from it. I don't even know if he realized that we had destroyed nearly all his Horcruxes until I told him as much during our final fight…

"In any case, it was six months before Voldemort finally took over the Ministry of Magic. Six months of training and missions. Of hard fought battles and costly losses for both sides. Unfortunately, my friends and I spent more time training than anything else. Because of the prophecy and our comparative youth, the senior members of the Order decided to keep us more in reserve, both because they didn't want us to have to fight and because I was, arguably, too important to risk on just any old mission because of my apparent destiny as the only one who could kill Voldemort. It was more frustrating than anything I've ever really had to do.

"Then, a few months after he took over the ministry, we got word that Tom had decided to do something absolutely, monstrously stupid. He was prepared to break the Statute of Secrecy and take his war to the muggles. Hermione was the first to realize the implications of this. She knew and explained to the rest of us just what would happen if the non-magicals learned of a hidden society of magic users and their first public contact was in the form of a terrorist killing indiscriminately. Something like that could only result in total war and the ultimate genocide of magicals everywhere.

"The way Hermione put it, fear would drive the muggles to respond with force, as all humans are often wont to do. Whether or not Voldemort understood this fact, his arrogance prevented him from realizing just what that force would have resulted in. The fact that our fears of the outcome were all but confirmed by Luna, who had more than a hint of seer's talent, meant that we had no other choice but to take him out before he made his move."

Harry met each of their eyes again, stopping at last with Zordon who gave him an encouraging nod, his eyes solemn in understanding. "We had to move fast and strike hard. We gathered all the allies we had and raided the Ministry Building in the early hours of July the 9th, 1999. The Death Eaters on guard were overwhelmed easily and we got into the building only to find Voldemort and the rest of his followers waiting on us. I never figured out how he knew we were coming, but the fight that followed is still a blur at this point. I remember spending most of the battle facing off against Tom directly. I remember him taunting me about the Elder Wand and how I was powerless to stand against him so long as he had it. I distinctly remember his rage when one of the Order members managed to kill his familiar, which also happened to be what we thought was his last Horcrux."

"You thought?" Billy asked. "So he had another one?" Everyone was leaning closer, save for Zordon who couldn't for obvious reasons, as Harry built toward the obvious climax of his tale. The anticipation in the air was nearly tangible.

Harry just nodded with a tiny wince. "Yeah, though even he didn't know it. We didn't even find out until he hit me with another Avada Kedavra curse. I died, but instead of passing on, the tiny fragment of his soul that was housed in my scar and made me an accidental Horcrux was removed and I once more survived the unsurvivable killing curse." Harry gave a soft chuckle. "I have to say that the look on his face when I stood back up again was more than a little satisfying. Apparently the entire battle had stopped when I went down, and seeing me climb back to my feet again both inspired my allies and horrified and demoralized the Death Eaters.

"Without the corrupting influence of Voldemort's scar tainting my magical signature, the Elder Wand flat out stopped working for Tom. From what I remember of Hermione's theory, the bit of his soul on my scar was all that let the wand even come close to working against me in the first place since I had won the allegiance of the wand when I disarmed Dumbledore nearly a year beforehand. Once the soul fragment was gone, the wand just wouldn't work against me anymore. I took advantage of it and cast what I sincerely hope to be the only killing curse that will ever cross my lips with intent to cast and finished the Second Blood War and gained a new title: the Man-Who-Won."

Harry sat back, having leaned forward as he spoke, and stretched slightly as the Rangers, Zordon, and Alpha seemed to process what he had told them. It was the robot though that broke the silence. "And what happened after that, Harry? Your story still doesn't explain how you came to be with us today."

And so Harry spoke of the month following the end of the war. Of how he tried to relax and recover, feeling peace for quite possibly the first time in his life, only to remain ignorant of the trouble brewing in the Ministry. He told them of Delores Umbridge's seizure of power and her Ministerial Decree for the Prevention of Megalomaniacal Acts. He spoke of the betrayal by Ron that led to his arrest and the subsequent farce of a trial and sentencing. He choked up slightly as he spoke of Hedwig's murder and smiled in satisfaction at his own extraction of vengeance against all those who turned against him. He told them briefly of his conversation with death and his ultimate arrival in their dimension, which lead directly into Rita and Goldar ambushing him and stealing the wand, which then lead to their own first meeting.

"And that's how it was." Harry finished with a sigh and a smile. "So, any questions?"

Harry was banking on the Rangers all being too overwhelmed to really have anything to ask. He himself was feeling a bit raw having to remember his less than pleasant past, though he was nonetheless happy that he had taken the step to share it with his new allies and, dare he suggest it, friends.

He should have known better though.

Zack gave him a wicked smile, practically dripping with mischief, before speaking. "There were a few details that you were a bit light on there, Harry. I could use some more info if you don't mind."

Harry groaned while the other Rangers shot Zack looks of curiosity. "I'm going to regret this. I can feel it… What do you want to know, Zack?"

"Well," Zack started, the amusement in his eyes never fading. "You mentioned the dance thing you had to go to in your fourth year and that you went with a classmate of yours. I got the feeling that nothing much came from that afterwards, but you can't expect us to believe that you spent all those years in a coed school and never had a single girlfriend, can you?"

Harry's face almost immediately went bright red. "Ah… well… you see, Zack… er… That's a bit complicated…"

Seeing Harry on his proverbial back foot, Zack pressed on with a huge smile on his face. "Oh? How so?" At this point, Jason, Billy, and Tommy were smothering their laughter at the Magi Ranger's embarrassment while Kimberly and Trini looked interested, though not much less amused than the others. Alpha, probably sensing that the time for serious talk was all but over, turned back to one of the computer consoles while Zordon merely chuckled good-naturedly.

Harry flinched slightly. "Well… you see… I was more than a little famous, as I said, with the whole Boy-Who-Lived thing… There were a few girls who were interested in me just for that… Wasn't interested in fan girls…" Harry knew he was rambling at this point, but his own embarrassment and the eager and amused faces before him kept him from stopping. "On top of that was my general social awkwardness from being raised by the Dursleys and… a few other complications…" At this Harry looked down and away from the others, closing his eyes tightly as his embarrassment fully overwhelmed him. After a moment, he shook his head violently and turned back to face Zack.

"And besides!" Harry near shouted. "If you hadn't picked it up, Zack. I was more than a little busy with fighting a freaking war! I didn't have a lot of extra time for dating and such with that on my plate!"

Zack waved one hand lazily in the air. "Yeah, yeah. What about that Hermione chick? You mentioned her several times. Did you two have a thing going on?"

Harry's face slipped into a fond smile as he thought about his best friend. "Hermione and I never dated. Were we close? Yes. Could we have ended up with a relationship? Maybe. I guess I'll never find out now, and those same complications still apply…"

Harry trailed off again and Zack once more sprang on the perceived opening. "Just what kind of complications are you talking about here, Harry?"

Harry leveled a flat, irritated look at the Black Ranger before flicking his wand. "Do me a favor and stop talking for a moment. Moving on, does anyone else have any questions? Preferably not questions about highly personal details of my private life." Zack tried to speak up again, to insist that he wasn't finished with his own line of questions, but found himself unable due to the silencing spell Harry had cast on him. "If you're a good boy I'll remove the spell before we leave here, alright?" Harry told him, smirking slightly as the other Rangers laughed at their comrade while Zack just pouted, his eyes still twinkling with good humor.

Seeing that none of the other Rangers seemed to have any further questions, Harry stood once more, stretching as he cautiously tested the strength of his legs and his sense of balance. Finding that he was able to remain vertical and stable, he offered his hands to the two ladies sitting before them to help them up. "Well, as much fun as this is, I am exhausted."

Kimberly smiled as she took his offered hand. "Yeah, it probably is getting a bit late, isn't it?"

"What do you mean?" Trini asked as she too accepted Harry's help with a tiny blush, checking the time on her communicator as she stood. "It's only a little after 5…"

Kimberly turned to face the other Rangers as she stretched. "Maybe so, but I was lucky to get off with just a warning after getting home so late last night. I don't want to risk it by missing dinner today."

After that it was only a matter of minutes before the Rangers had all said their goodbyes and teleported back to Angel Grove. When Harry was the sole human left in the Command Center he wished Alpha and Zordon a good night before heading to his room to turn in early. Getting the crap kicked out of him and his first time using his new powers had wiped him out more than he had anticipated.

Just as he reached his door, however, Zordon spoke. "Thank you once again, Harry, for sharing that with us. I know it could not have been easy for you. Rest well, Magi Ranger, for once you have fully recovered I shall begin your tutelage in the Morphing Grid Power you now wield. There is much for you to learn."

Harry nodded his thanks, muffling a yawn as his body started to slow down, before making his way into his room and closing the door. He took only enough time to wave his wand, transfiguring his clothing into something more appropriate for sleeping in, before collapsing onto his cot, asleep almost before he was fully settled.

-MR-

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